The six-officer Kountze Police Department has received eight fully automatic rifles, 30 bayonets and close to $1.5 million in general gear through a free federal program that transfers surplus military equipment to local law enforcement agencies, the department's assistant chief said.

Kountze PD has kept the Vietnam-era M-16s locked up since they were delivered last year because none of the police on the force have undergone appropriate training, Assistant Chief Brent Slaughter said.

The long-running Department of Defense program since 2006 has funneled tens of thousands of assault rifles and hundreds of mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles to local agencies, as well as pistols, aircraft, silencers, night-vision equipment and camouflage, according to a database of the transfers obtained by The New York Times.

The program has been increasingly scrutinized since the local police force in Ferguson, Missouri, has brandished gear designed for war in response to sometimes-violent protests after a white police officer fatally shot an unarmed black teenager Aug. 9.

"Neighborhoods are not war zones, and police officers should not be approaching them that way," Tom Hargis, spokesman for ACLU of Texas, told The Enterprise on Wednesday. "If we agree that neighborhoods aren't war zones, why are these federal agencies acquiring new weapons to arm our police departments?"

Kountze PD also received 30 bayonets, a sword-like blade traditionally attached to the end of a firearm for close combat.

Officers are not permitted to attach the blades to their gun, Slaughter said.

"That's what the military issues them for, but we don't have a call to do that," he said.

They are instead used locally as a sort of utility knife. Each marked unit is equipped with a bayonet and some have been passed out to city workers for use as utility knives, Slaughter said.

Kountze acquired two Humvees - high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles - and sometimes uses them on patrol because the department is short on units, Slaughter said, emphasizing the unarmored vehicles are not meant for assaults.

Kountze also received a $7,500 tent the department intended to use to make a haunted house, but a storm wrecked the already-tattered tent just before Halloween, Slaughter said.

According to the database, $1.3 million in gear has been shipped to Hardin County agencies since 2006. Overall, that number is closer to $1.5 million for Kountze PD alone, Slaughter said, with most of it unrelated to crime fighting.

"We're always looking for stuff that we can use and if we can use it to help the city in any way," he said.

Two dump trucks at a combined value of $157,000 were acquired last year and loaned out to the City of Kountze, which uses them daily, city administrator Roderick Hutto said.

"It provides equipment we need to clean ditches and haul stuff in," Hutto said. "It provides a bigger capacity for us instead rather than what we're used to."

City workers also use a $100,000 fork lift, air compressors and tools acquired through the program.

Jefferson County agencies received $1.3 million in equipment through the program since 2006, the database shows.

A mine-resistant vehicle went to the county's sheriff's office, 28 assault rifles were shipped to the Beaumont Police Department and 10 M-16s and 10 pistols went to the Beaumont Independent School District, The Enterprise reported Friday.

The Orange County Sheriff's Office has also received a mine-resistant vehicle, though it has not yet been unveiled to the public, Sheriff Keith Merritt said.